The Take Root conference is in its seventh year as the leading convening for “The Red State Perspective on Reproductive Justice.” It is a two-day gathering of workshops and panels that bring together scholars, students, practitioners, and activist from across the U.S. in the fight for reproductive health, rights, and dignity.
This year the conference was in Oklahoma—not an easy place to champion progressive values. Oklahoma’s electoral college votes haven’t gone to a Democratic presidential candidate since 1964, the state ranks last in terms of voter turnout in the United States, and recently, it gained national attention for notorious fracking-induced earthquakes and restrictive reproductive health care access policies and legislation. Earlier this month, in a move shocking even for Oklahoma, the state legislature debated a bill that downgraded women from human beings to just “hosts” for babies, requiring women who are seeking abortions to get written permission from their sexual partner. The very same week, Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt—a seasoned legal opponent of environment protections—was confirmed as Environmental Protection Agency administrator. This momentum toward dismantling environmental and women’s health protections can feel downright frightening.
Nonetheless, the brave and heroic work of individuals rooted in the fight for justice left me inspired. More than 500 people formed an Indivisible group in Norman, OK. The conference showcased the stories of brave leaders such as Rep. Corinne Johnson, who fought against the Oklahoma personhood amendment; Paula Sophia Schonauer, a transgender retired police officer who spoke about what President Trump’s executive order on Title IX means for her safety; and spoken-word poets Lauren Zuniga and Candace Liger, who lift up the battles of sexual assault and female incarceration through art activism. The halls were crowded with brave men and women from conservative states working to protect women’s rights—whether that is through political activism or direct service.
Many people may wonder what an environmental organization such as the Sierra Club is doing at a conference focused on women’s health. However, the conference’s agenda showcased these linkages clearly. Here are a few examples:
Environmental threats are not the only threats from fracking. Organizations such as the Native American Women’s Health Education Resource Center and the Native Alliance Against Violence work to protect women from trafficking and assault directly tied to the influx of ‘man camps’ across the Midwest, including those near oil and gas extraction sites. There has been a reported doubling of calls to sexual assault hotlines, a 17 percent increase in reported rapes in oil counties of North Dakota, and a long-standing high prevalence (51 percent) of sexual violence for Native American women (80 percent by non–Native men). Nonetheless, sex trafficking of girls in the United States—of which the average age is 14—remains largely unmeasured. Action must be taken to protect women and girls from the sexual assault of men in the energy extractive industry. Yet, we’re witnessing a Trump Administration that’s threatening to gut the Justice Department’s initiatives to end violence against women. Twenty-three tribal domestic violence programs in Oklahoma rely solely on national level funding. These funds are vital to protect women’s safety.
Standing Rock can teach us about reproductive justice. The Dakota Access Pipeline threatens to contaminate the sacred water of the Standing Rock Sioux Tribe - a major water source for the reservation and for millions living in cities downstream. Keynote speaker Casey Camp-Horinek from the Ponca Nation shared that water is life, bearing witness to our actions, and is intimately necessary for human health and well-being. The fight to protect Standing Rock from the Dakota Access Pipeline was because of the threat of polluting the sacred water. Coya White Hat-Artichoker spoke clearly,“women and children cannot thrive without clean water.” Reproductive justice is often defined as the belief in the human right to choose to have children, not have children, and parent the children we have in safe and sustainable communities. This third piece—to raise children in a healthy environment—continues to be threatened by land degradation and water pollutants which directly affects pregnancies and human health. It is also threatened by the 24 percent funding cuts to the EPA proposed by the Trump administration, which would zero-out programs ranging from brownfields to radon to environmental education. Standing Rock is an environmental justice issue and it is a reproductive justice issue.
Building a strong movement takes all of us. Loretta Ross, the co-founder of Sister Song and Dr. Willie Parker, one of the few abortion providers in the South and a vocal reproductive rights activist, left us with a clear and powerful message: We must show up with kindness and empathy for one another as we continue to build a movement. Loretta Ross affirmed, “we don’t have to be perfect to do human rights work, because the cause is perfect.” And Dr. Willie Parker proclaimed it is “time to practice civics, not civility.” Rep. Corinne Johnson—the state legislator who famously provided an amendment to combat a proposed anti-choice bill—was clear in the need to improve the low voter turnout in Oklahoma to better reflect the true values of constituents in state politics.
We are at neither the beginning nor the end of our struggle for justice, but I am proud to be working alongside such strong and inspiring people from across the United States toward being a thread in the fabric of freedom.